Housed at Chatham’s 338-acre Eden Hall Campus, the Falk School is the world’s first academic community built expressly for the study of sustainable living, learning and development.

Thanks to the “two-plus-two” agreement between the two institutions, ACM students who graduate with an associate degree in biology can transfer seamlessly into Chatham’s bachelor’s program in sustainability.

Pittsburgh: Chatham University has achieved second place in Master’s Institutions’ Overall Top Performers category in the 2016 Sustainable Campus Index, a publication by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). Chatham earned the second highest gold level rating with an overall STARS score of 75.8, with only one university earning the highest platinum level rating. Chatham also tied for first place in the Grounds category, which highlights achievement in campus land management and biodiversity of campus grounds and surrounding lands.

STARS is a transparent, self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance developed by AASHE. With nearly 800 participating institutions, STARS is the leading tool for measuring higher education sustainability performance. 124 reports were submitted in the most recent calendar year, resulting in an 11 percent increase over the previous year and a third consecutive year of growth.

PITTSBURGH: The Falk School of Sustainability & Environment will host a broad range of speakers during the 2016 Fall Semester. All events will take place at 2 p.m. at the Esther Barazzone Center on the Eden Hall campus in Richland, PA. Events include:

October 28
“The Budding Aromas from Taco Trucks: Taste and Space in Austin, Texas” will feature Robert D. Lemon, MCRP, MLArch, PhD, department of geography University of Texas, Austin on October 28. Lemon is a visiting professor for Human Geography at the Institute of Geography and the Heidelberg Center for American Studies at Heidelberg University. He is a cultural and urban geographer with a passion for landscape studies. As an urban geographer and environmental designer, he has studied extensively the social practices and built transformations of cities through their aesthetic representation.

PITTSBURGH: Chatham University announced that they have become a Charter Signatory of the Second Nature Climate Commitment to further commitments to carbon neutrality and resilience. The Climate Commitment, a signature program of Boston-based nonprofit Second Nature, requires Chatham to set climate targets, report on progress publicly, and collaborate with the surrounding community, all while integrating sustainability across the curriculum. Chatham is also a charter signatory American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (now called the Carbon Commitment), and received a Climate Leadership Award in 2013 from Second Nature for its efforts.

In addition to this latest commitment, Chatham was recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as an Individual Conference Champion of the 2015-16 College & University Green Power Challenge for using more green power than any other school in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference. Chatham beat its conference rivals by using 12 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power, representing 97 percent of the school’s annual electricity usage. Chatham University is procuring renewable energy certificates (RECs) from Renewable Choice Energy. This demonstrates a proactive choice to switch away from traditional sources of electricity generation and support cleaner renewable energy alternatives. According to the U.S. EPA, Chatham University’s green power use of 12 million kWh is equivalent to the electricity use of nearly 1,100 average American homes annually.